The president of CEOE International, Marta Blanco, today held at the headquarters of the Business Confederation a meeting with the Secretary of State for Industry and Commerce of the Czech Republic, Vladimír Bärtl, to analyze business and investment opportunities in key sectors of the country. The Czech Secretary of State was accompanied by the representative of the Department of Foreign Economic Policies of the Ministry of Industry and Commerce, Karel Zděnovec and by the Ambassador of the Czech Republic in Spain, Ivan Jančárek.
Coinciding with the commemoration of the centenary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the Czech Republic and Spain, the Embassy of the Czech Republic in Spain and the Investment Promotion Agency – CzechInvest – award in a ceremony organized in the Residence of the Ambassador to a series of companies for the investments carried out in recent years, among which include: Aqualia, Gestamp Automoción and Grupo Antolín, among others.
Bilateral relations
Relations between the Czech Republic and Spain are very fluid as member countries of the EU. However, they are still far from the possibilities of increasing them to date, not only bilaterally but also in third markets. Spanish exports in 2018 to the Czech Republic were 2,409 million euros and imports of 4,279 million euros. Bilateral trade exchanges have been on the rise since 2012.
The number of Spanish companies that exported to the Czech Republic in 2018 was 5,602. Of these, 3,275 are regular exporters in the last 4 years and 1,267 are consolidated regular exporters, having exported more than € 50,000 in the last 4 consecutive years. The number of exporting companies has increased over recent years, but at a rate of 8% in the period of the last 4 years in the total, which increases to 17.42% in the regular and 22, 89% in the regular-consolidated ones. With regard to bilateral relations with Spain, the Czech Republic is the 10th largest customer of Spanish exports among European countries.
Business cooperation opportunities
Among commercial opportunities, it is important to highlight the need to strengthen the existing relationship in certain sectors, such as machinery, construction or the automotive sector, since the Czech Republic is emerging as a logistics center for automotive components in Europe . In this respect, it concentrates 56% of the sector worldwide.
Opportunities were also mentioned in the sector of new technologies – especially artificial intelligence -, mining, given the advanced Spanish technology and the potential collaboration in third markets and the service sector, especially tourism, thanks to the growing affluence of tourists to Prague, which has motivated a growing interest in this sector in the region.
European trade policy and Multilateralism
Both Spain and the Czech Republic, in their common membership of the European Union, share positions in certain areas of Community trade policy, such as the defense of multilateralism, the elimination of technical barriers that harm the functioning of the internal market and the current situation of economic and commercial relations with the United States and China in sensitive sectors, such as automotive or aluminum, among others.